


Baby I'm Perfect (For You)

by Gigi_Sinclair



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 03:24:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11958681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gigi_Sinclair/pseuds/Gigi_Sinclair
Summary: The King has a crush on the Ice Tiger, but will Yuri reciprocate J.J.'s affections? (The answer is, of course, yes. Eventually.) Art by July (evening-radio.tumblr.com)Set post-canon. Brief mention of homophobic violence (not graphic.)





	Baby I'm Perfect (For You)

Yuri posts the picture just after eleven P.M. his time, which means J.J. doesn't see it until he gets out of practice. He's in the locker room, sitting on the bench with his skates stowed in his bag, when he pulls out his phone.

There are more modern apps than Instagram these days, but most of the people he knows are old enough to stick to the classics, so J.J. does, as well. J.J. scrolls through a few photos of Victor and Yuuri and their baby, and a few more of Phichit and his mice or whatever they are, clicking a heart here and there because J.J.'s generous that way. He gives a picture of Isabella's new apartment in Paris a thumbs up emoji, then he lands on the picture of Yuri.

Yuri's flipping off the camera with both hands, which isn't unusual. J.J. would estimate about eighty percent of the pictures Yuri's in feature his middle fingers front and centre. What makes this one different is Yuri's face.

Dark bruises cover both cheeks, extending both upward onto Yuri's forehead, and down onto his chin. One of his eyes is ringed with bluish purple, and one side of his lip is swollen and painful-looking. The caption, in English, reads: _Date night in St. Petersburg._

J.J.'s heart stops. His eyes flick to the time, frantically calculating the difference. It's after one in the morning in Russia. J.J. can't call, even if that was something he normally does. It's not. He clicks out of Instagram, closing that horrific image, and texts Yuri instead.

 _What happened?_ He asks, even though he knows he won't get an answer for hours, if he gets one at all. Yuri answers his texts sometimes. More than he used to, but nothing approaching regularly.

J.J. starts in surprise when the text alert sounds almost immediately, before he's even out of the locker room.

 _What it fucking look like?_ Yuri's English is so-so, but he has an excellent grasp of profanity.

 _A bad day on the ice_ , J.J. replies, flippant even as his stomach churns.

 _Good skaters have no days like that,_ Yuri writes back. _I don't expect you will know this._

 J.J. smiles. He's still Yuri, at least. As he's composing a return shot, Yuri goes on: _I went out with a guy and some assholes wanted to fuck with us_.

 _They aren't fans of your skating?_ J.J. tries, but he's not hopeful that's the reason.

 _Are you that fucking dumb?_ The reply comes back. _Sorry, I forget you live in the Canada paradise. Maple syrup flows in the fucking rivers and men can fuck in the streets without nobody giving a shit_.

 _That really sucks_. J.J. types, but he doesn't send it. It doesn't seem like enough. Yuri's right, J.J. does live in the best country in the world. Every day, he's grateful he was born in Canada, and when he comes home from tournaments abroad, he makes sure to kiss the ground the moment he steps off the plane. It centres him. It humbles him. And it doesn't hurt that the media loves that stuff.

J.J. deletes the text, and replaces it with: _Can you still skate?_ The GPF final is coming up fast.

 _I will kick your ass in Cleveland, Leroy._ J.J. smiles. It's the kind of answer he should have expected from Yuri. At the same time, J.J. feels like that wasn't what he was asking at all.

 _Take care of yourself_ , he writes back. What he means is: be careful. Then, _I don't enjoy winning as much without strong competition._ What he means is: I don't enjoy winning as much without you.

 _Fuck off_. Yuri replies. As a get well gift, J.J. lets him have the last word.

 

The image of Yuri's bruised and damaged face doesn't disappear as easily, though. It floats in J.J.'s mind all evening, superimposing itself over text messages from his other friends—from his _friends_ , J.J. reminds himself, which Yuri really isn't—and appearing, like an image of the Madonna in a piece of toast, in his mom's spaghetti as they sit around the table for their weekly family dinner night.

“Are you all right, honey?” Nathalie asks, peering over a glass of Pinot Grigio.

“Yeah,” he replies. “Yeah, I'm fine.”

But J.J. can't keep anything from his parents. He never wants to. When his younger brother and sister leave the table, disappearing upstairs to do their homework, he says, “Yuri Plisetsky got in a fight.”

“Huh.” His father grunts. “Can't say I'm surprised.”

That rankles, for some reason. J.J. sounds more defensive than he intends to when he clarifies, “It wasn't his fault, Dad. He was attacked. For being on a date with a man.”

J.J.'s mom reaches out, laying a hand on his arm. “Russia's still very hard that way, honey.”

“I know. It's just...” He can't put it into words, but all of a sudden J.J. really _feels_ the injustice of it, in a way he hasn't before. _Maybe I'm growing up,_ he thinks. He's twenty-four. Maybe caring about world issues is something that comes along with ageing. “I can't explain it.”

J.J.'s parents exchange a glance. “Will he be all right?” His mother asks.

“He says he'll be in Cleveland.” That's only four weeks away.

“Good.” J.J.'s father nods. “You do best with strong competition.”

Again, J.J. feels like his point has been missed. But since he doesn't even know what that point is, let alone how to put it into words, he says, “Can I have another scoop of ice cream, Mom? I'll work it off in the morning.”

 

After dinner, J.J. heads home to his downtown condo, clutching a Tupperware container of spaghetti. Although she's been gone for nearly four months, working her dream job in Paris, the fridge still holds traces of Isabella: a can of San Pellegrino here, a few bottles of diet Pepsi there. J.J. rearranges them so he can fit in the Tupperware. He could just throw out Bella's stuff, he guesses, but she's bound to be home for a visit sometime.

He and Isabella broke up nearly a year before she left for France, but they kept living together, mostly because they remained good friends. Even now, they email and Skype regularly, and she's still the president of the official J.J. Leroy fan club. She's even drummed up some interest in his old band since she moved away, although the band has been on hiatus for the last two years, mostly because Jimmy left and Joey got married.

Although it's even later for her than it is for him, J.J. picks up his phone, with the intention of sending Bella a text. Sometimes she stays up, and she's always happy to talk to him about anything that's on his mind. Instead of opening a new text conversation, though, J.J. clicks on Instagram and scrolls down until he sees Yuri's picture.

The caption is gone, but the image remains. Looking past the shocking bruises, J.J. can see the usual anger burning in Yuri's eyes, the same fury J.J.'s seen at every international competition he's attended for the past five years. But there's something else, too, something J.J.'s never seen before. He can't say for sure, but it looks like...fear?

J.J. sighs. It's not fair for Yuri to have to live through that, to be subject to shit like this just because he wants to date guys. J.J. himself has been happily pansexual since he was old enough to know what that means. Why deprive anyone of King J.J.'s love? J.J. never once thought he might be in danger because of it, and he never once worried about being accepted for it. He took it for granted. He can see that now. Yuri, it seems, doesn't have that luxury.

But what can J.J. do? He thinks about it as he showers, and as he pulls on a Canadiens T-shirt for bed. Finally, on impulse, he pulls up amazon.ru and clicks the “translate” button. He selects the biggest stuffed cat he can find—and it is truly massive, nearly one point seven-five metres tall—and sends it to Yuri's address. Not his fan mail address, his real address, the one J.J. coaxed out of Victor one night when Victor was hammered. J.J. can't say why he did it, only that he thought it might come in handy one day. And he was right, it has.

When the site asks him to write a message for the gift recipient, he thinks for only a moment before typing: _A kitten for my kitten, although this one must be bigger than you. Lots of love, your King_. It'll make Yuri livid, there's no doubt about it. J.J. hopes it's enough to take his mind off what he's been through, at least for a while.

That done, J.J. puts his phone away for the night. Slipping between the sheets, he pulls on his purple velvet sleep mask, decorated with little gold crowns over each eye, and immediately falls asleep.

 

It doesn't last long. J.J. wakes from a dream that evaporates as soon as he pulls the sleep mask from his eyes. A glance at his phone, plugged in beside the bed, shows that it's only a few minutes past midnight, but he feels wide awake.

With a sigh, J.J. gets out of bed and heads to the kitchen. He takes a glass from the cupboard, fills it at the tap, and looks out across the twinkling lights of the city. Strangely, as he sips his water, he thinks about texting Yuri again. He's probably at practice already; he'll certainly be up and about. But what would J.J. say? He can't think of anything.

It's times like these that J.J. really misses Bella. Even after they stopped sleeping together, she always knew when he was awake, and she'd come out of her bedroom to talk to him. Sometimes, they would sit together, watching pointless Youtube videos or even in silence. He appreciated that. He didn't realize just how much until she left. Bella always knew how to get J.J. out of his own head.

Strangely, it's something Yuri can do, too, if last year's Worlds are anything to go by.

 

They were on J.J.'s home turf, more or less, in Mississauga, and he was expected to win the gold for Canada. J.J. expected himself to win. Then, he got on the ice and was seized by the same panic that hit him at the Grand Prix Final in Barcelona.

He's been seeing a psychologist on and off since then, to make sure it didn't happen again, but in that moment, everything he'd learned from her flew from his mind. He stumbled on his triple Lutz, then missed his quad flip entirely, sprawling inelegantly over the ice. He only qualified for the final flight of the free skate by the slimmest of margins. While his parents told him he should see that as a good thing, that he could only go up from there, J.J. saw it as nothing but a failure.

He was pacing the bowels of the stadium before the free skate, trying to clear his mind and not succeeding. “King J.J.'s Theme” of a few seasons ago had been replaced by “The Glory of King J.J.”, and J.J. listened to the song over and over, trying to recapture the feeling he'd had every other time he'd heard it. It escaped him. Just as J.J. began to wonder if he could actually do this, if he was, in fact, a complete fraud and his career up until now had been pure luck, someone yanked the earbuds roughly out of his ears.

“Hey.” J.J. looked down at Yuri Plisetsky, staring up at him with the usual scowl on his face. Without saying anything else, Yuri grabbed him by his Team Canada jacket and pulled him down, pressing their mouths together.

As kisses go, it wasn't a gold medal winner. Yuri's mouth was wet, his tongue slithery and his teeth sharp in J.J.'s bottom lip. It still gave J.J. an instant erection, snapping him to attention in his tight costume leggings. “I don't kiss quitters,” Yuri said, when he pulled away. “So get your head out of your ass.” Then he left.

It was like a slap to the face, although much more enjoyable. J.J. pulled himself together and finished in fourth, which wasn't what he'd wanted but a damn sight better than it could have been. At the party afterward, J.J. slunk up to Yuri, who of course took the gold, and put an arm around his shoulders. Yuri scowled and pushed him away.

“Fuck off, asshole,” Yuri snapped. Yuuri Katsuki tutted, but J.J. got it. He didn't _understand_ it, exactly—why would anyone want to deny themselves a taste of the King?—but he got it. And anyway, he was still with Isabella at the time. The King isn't a cheater.

 

That was what had happened in reality. As J.J. lies down on his couch, however, things take a different turn. He imagines Yuri sliding up to him after that competition, his tongue slithering into J.J.'s ear the way it had slipped into J.J.'s mouth. “Let's get out of here,” he murmurs, and J.J. nods eagerly.

In a featureless hotel room identical to a thousand hotel rooms J.J. has stayed in over the years, Yuri pushes him onto the bed. Their clothes disappear, in the convenient way of dreams, and Yuri straddles him, his tight little ass on top of J.J.'s crotch. Yuri faces away, moving slowly and sensuously, driving J.J. insane as he moves over J.J.'s cock, rubbing it against his cleft but never taking it inside. His blond ponytail hangs down over his shoulders. J.J. reaches out and loosens its elastic, spreading Yuri's long hair across his pale back. _Beautiful_ , J.J. thinks, but then he always thinks that about Yuri. He has since Yuri was fifteen years old.

“What?” Yuri says, although J.J. didn't speak. He's about to say that, to tell him to keep doing what he's doing, when Yuri turns to look over his shoulder. His face is the bruised and beaten one of the Instagram photo, his beauty marred by traces of violence that should never be anywhere near a boy like that. “Help me, J.J.,” Yuri says. Then, “Save me.”

J.J. jerks awake in surprise, to find himself lying on his own sofa, his phone alarm buzzing beside him.

 

J.J.'s sister has an orthodontist's appointment, so it's just him and his dad at the rink this morning. Which is just as well, because J.J. can't get it together. When he lands on his ass yet again, under-rotating a jump he's pulled off a thousand times before, Alain calls, “Let's give it a rest. Take twenty and meet me in the gym for weight training.” J.J. wants to scream in frustration, but that's no way for a king to behave. Instead, he stalks off the ice and out of the rink.

It's late fall. The sun is bright, although it's starting to get chilly, and J.J. kicks his way through mounds of crispy fallen leaves, crunching over some and scattering others to the side. He hears Nathalie approaching before he sees her.

“Dad told me you had a hard time today.”

J.J. looks over. “Just one of those days.” _It's not like before_ , he wants to reassure her. Instead, he just shoots her his usual dazzling smile.

 “Happens to us all.” She falls into step beside him, taking two for each of J.J.'s long strides. “Did I ever tell you,” Nathalie says, as they round the corner, “that your dad and I skated with different partners, back in our early days?”

“I know.” He's watched video of it, grainy VHS footage of his parents at the start of their careers. It seems wrong to see them with anyone else, like they're cheating on each other in advance.

 “Marie-Josée Demerest was his. She was a beautiful woman. Still is.” J.J. knows that. She's a figure skating commentator for CTV these days. J.J. has been interviewed by her. “I saw her and your dad compete together at the 1989 Junior Nationals in Chicoutimi. They placed sixth. My partner Denis and I were third, but it didn't matter. Your dad was so amazing. Captivating. I decided right then that I wanted to skate with him. Had to.” J.J. looks down at her. “Marie-Josée was a beautiful woman, like I say, but her footwork was terrible. So I went up to your dad, bold as anything, and told him that if he wanted to get anywhere, he should leave her and skate with me.”

“And he did.” That's a familiar part of the story. J.J. grew up with his parents' skating medals, pretending they were his own as he looped them over his neck and waved at an adoring crowd made up of his toys, the dog, and later his baby sister and brother.

“You know your dad, honey. He asked me what I could offer him that nobody else could. I said, 'I'm fearless. And I can wait.' I did. It took him two more years of failing with Marie-Josée before he came crawling to me, begging me to give him a chance. That same season, we got our first gold.”

“That's a great story, Mom.” It is. “Thanks for telling me.”

“Honey.” Nathalie stops. She puts out her hands, resting them on J.J.'s arms. “Sometimes, people don't know what's good for them. You have to give them time to figure it out. And maybe they never will.”

“Right.” J.J. feels like he's missing something, but this is his mom. A crease wrinkles the top of her nose, in the space above her glasses. J.J. kisses her on the cheek, hoping that makes her happy, and heads to the gym.

 

A couple of hours in the gym, and J.J.'s problems melt away. They always do. There's something soothing about the mindless effort of lifting weights, spinning the stationary bicycle, and running endless kilometres on the treadmill that gets J.J.'s head back where it should be. On his way home, a couple of girls recognize him in the Metro station. Their excited selfies draw the attention of others, and by the time J.J. gets back to his condo, he's relaxed, happy and much later than he expected to be.

He throws the leftover spaghetti in the microwave and picks up his phone. There are a few text alerts, but J.J. scrolls by all of them until he arrives at a message from Yuri, sent a couple of hours earlier. _How do you find my address, asshole?_

So the gift must have arrived. J.J. smiles as he replies: _Victor_.

The answer comes immediately. _I will kill him dead_.

_That's not very nice, babe. Didn't you like your present?_

_I show it to my real cat. She is a jealous type._

_Sounds messy._

 

The microwave dings. J.J. takes out his bowl and brings his phone over to the table. Yuri hasn't written anything else. J.J. takes a forkful of spaghetti, winding the strings around the tines, then types out, _What did Victor think about the..._ J.J. hesitates. “Fight” implies Yuri had something to do with it. _Incident?_ He finishes.

Yuri doesn't ask what J.J. means. _Lost his shit. Wants me to move to Japan._

_Are you going to?_

_No._

That seems to be the end of the conversation, but J.J. isn't ready to stop. _Is your boyfriend OK?_

No answer. J.J. finishes the spaghetti and puts the bowl in the dishwasher. He downs a couple of apples, then goes into his bedroom to get undressed. He keeps the phone with him, setting it on the counter as he steps into the shower. It's not until J.J.'s out, drying himself off and admiring his truly tasteful and artistic tattoos in the mirror that he hears the text alert ring again.

 _Not a boyfriend_ , the message reads. _Just a guy._

 _Hope he's OK._ J.J. isn't really sure what else to say.

_How's yours?_

_My boyfriend?_ J.J.'s never actually had one. The pansexuality is more theoretical than anything. In practice, he's never really been with anyone but Isabella. They got together when he was sixteen and once they broke up, he realized how hard it is to find someone who understands the life of a professional athlete, especially a star like him. Bella really is special, in all kinds of ways.

_Your girlfriend, jackass. Fiancee. I don't know what she is._

_We aren't together anymore._ J.J.'s surprised Yuri doesn't know that. Surely the breakup was big news among all the skaters? It was a featured article in J.J.'s online newsletter. Bella wrote it herself.

Once again, Yuri doesn't reply, but it must be getting close to seven A.M. in Russia. He probably has to leave for practice J.J. plugs his phone into the wall and gets into bed. As he's drifting off to sleep, the text alert rings again.

It's a photo this time. Yuri's bruises have faded a little, although his sneer is as big as ever. The huge stuffed cat is propped up on a wooden chair in what has to be Yuri's kitchen. He's holding a real cat over it in a way, from Yuri's texts, J.J. assumes is meant to be threatening. It's actually quite sweet. The cat looks confused, it's little round face tilted up at Yuri.

 _Cute_ , J.J. replies.

_She will attack, you idiot._

_I meant you_ , _babe._ He adds a “kiss” emoji, saves the picture of Yuri and the cats to his phone, and pulls down his sleep mask.

 ***

 

Cleveland is nine hundred kilometres from Montreal, but at least it's on the same continent, and in the same time zone. Good American male skaters have been thin on the ground lately, so J.J. has a lot of fans in the U.S. When he arrives for the GPF, he's met at the airport by hundreds of happy people waving signs and holding up their hands in the J.J. salute. J.J. returns the gesture, and they scream with joy.

J.J.'s not like some athletes, who resent their fans for invading their privacy, or see them only as an avenue to more money. J.J.'s fans _get_ him. They appreciate his uniqueness. They can see that he's amazing and remarkable, and they love him for it. He reflects that love right back at them. A couple of older fans want pictures with J.J.'s parents, as well, and J.J. waves them into the shot, throwing one arm around his mom and the other around his dad. J.J.'s showered with bouquets of flowers, handmade cards, stuffed animals and other good luck charms. He juggles them all, along with his suitcase, as he makes his way out of the airport and into the waiting car.

When they get to the hotel, J.J. spots Victor Nikiforov across the lobby. He's with his new star student, Kenjirou Minami. J.J. skated against him earlier in the season, at the Rostelecom Cup. He's good enough, but he's nowhere near what Victor was, and he's nothing like Victor's husband Katsuki.

Victor doesn't seem to think so, either. He's on his phone, ignoring Minami in favour of texting. Minami sits in an armchair beside him, his feet up on the coffee table, staring at the ceiling in a pose that could be the dictionary definition of “bored teenager.” “Hey, Victor.” J.J. calls. “How's Yuri?”

Victor glances up. “He is very well, thank you, J.J. Very sad he couldn't come to the tournament, but he is loving being at home with our little sweetheart. You have seen our Hana?” He doesn't pause for a reply. Instead, he holds up the phone, and J.J. smiles at a picture of Yuuri Katsuki holding a fussy-looking black-haired baby wrapped in a yellow blanket.

“Cute.”

“She is incredible.” Victor flips through the pictures, showing J.J. one of the baby lying on her back on a mat covered with toys, then another of her lying on her stomach on the same mat. On the couch, Minami groans loudly, although Victor pays him no attention. “So good. She sleeps ten hours every night, and only eight months old! And smart. The doctors say she is the smartest baby they have ever seen. She can say Daddy in Russian, English _and_ in Japanese, and they say it is too early for her to read, but I am sure she can recognize words.” He keeps flipping. J.J.'s eyes start to lose focus as Victor whips through picture after picture of the baby in her highchair, in her crib, in the bathtub, with Victor's ancient brown dog. When there seems to be no end in sight, J.J. cuts in. “Yeah, that's great, Victor. How's Yuri Plisetsky?”

“Ah. Yes.” Victor lowers the phone, thank God. “He is getting better. He's lucky he wasn't more badly injured.” _More_ badly injured? He'd seemed injured enough to J.J. “J.J.,” Victor goes on, a frown on his handsome face, “you are Yuri's friend, yes?”

“I...” J.J. blinks. He doubts Yuri would call them that, but J.J. cares about him, and he texts Yuri more than he does any other skater. Does that make them friends?

Victor doesn't wait for an answer.

“You must speak to him about moving to Japan. He will not listen to me, but Russia is not a home for people like us. Of course, he loves it. I love it, too. But it does not return the feeling.”

 

The bleakness of that thought hits J.J. so hard, he physically steps back. The idea of Canada rejecting him for any reason, as impossible it is, turns J.J.'s stomach. It's too much to even consider, so J.J. doesn't. He pushes the thought aside, to the back of his mind with all the other things he doesn't ever want to consider, and pulls one of the bouquets from the stack he received at the airport. “Give that to Yuri for me, would you, please?” J.J. says. “Tell him I can't wait to look down on him on the podium.”

“J.J.!” Alain calls him over, and J.J. goes back to his parents, leaving Victor holding the flowers and blinking in surprise.

Official practice for the senior men's division runs the next morning. Free tickets were available to the public, so J.J.'s fans have come out en masse. A long banner, painted on what looks like an old bedsheet, reading: “J.J. Style!!!” hangs over the railing. J.J. waves at the people behind it as he pulls off his warm-up jacket and skates out onto the ice.

There are a couple of new faces this year. As well as Minami, a Chinese skater in his first senior season, Zhang Wei, gave J.J. a run for his money at Skate Canada, and there's a French skater, Jean-Marc Chartrand, who's risen in the rankings a lot since last season. J.J. eyes them as he skates lazily around the rink, feeling out the ice. He watches critically as Chartrand tries, and fails, to do a triple Lutz, and shoots the man a sympathetic look. J.J.'s the senior man on the tour now. He has to be sportsmanlike, to set a good example for the younger skaters.

J.J. runs through a step sequence, then does a couple of easy double jumps to warm up. As he comes out of the second jump, he looks over to the side of the rink, and sees Yuri taking off his skate guards.

J.J. can't resist. He skates over, launching himself into a non-regulation—but really fucking cool—backflip right in front of Yuri. J.J.'s fans go wild. J.J. waves at them again and says, “Hi, Yuri,” a little out of breath.

Yuri looks like he's in good shape, but he always does. His body is very different from J.J.'s. J.J. has always been intrigued by that. Yuri's so slight, so delicate and even feminine-looking in a way, but he's just as strong as J.J. It's a fascinating combination. “What's up?”

Yuri rolls his eyes. That's not much of an answer, so J.J. skates after him as he steps onto the ice. “Are you okay?” A few fading bruises still mar his cheeks and his forehead, but he does look a lot better than in the latest picture J.J. has, the one with the stuffed cat. They've texted back and forth a few times since then, but although J.J. tried to coax him—and even sent a picture of himself, showing off his really amazing guns in the mirror—Yuri didn't send any others.

“I should not be?”

“How'd you like the flowers?”

“They look very nice in the rubbish bin.”

J.J. laughs. Yuri turns, then, and J.J. just can't help himself. He's at the GPF, he's in front of a supportive crowd, Yuri's there and he's gorgeous as ever. J.J. reaches out and grabs Yuri like he would any friend at his home rink, putting his arms around Yuri's waist and lifting him off the ice.

“What the fuck are you doing?” In an instant, Yuri's face turns stormy. “Put me down, asshole, or you'll get a skate in your fucking dick.”

Minami laughs, a high hysterical noise, as he skates by. J.J. complies with Yuri's demand. “Sorry.” He winks. “Just joking, sweetheart.”

Yuri flips him off, which sets off a murmur of excitement in the crowd. Scary old Yakov barks something. It sounds harsh, but Russian always sounds harsh to J.J. Yuri skates away. J.J. doesn't follow this time, but does a perfect triple lutz-triple loop combination, coincidentally ending up right in front of the row of cameras that line the edge of the ice.

“Very nice, J.J. Will you and Plisetsky be going for ice dance next year?” J.J. looks up. Christophe Giacometti is standing next to one of the cameras, in a suit and tie with media accreditation hanging around his neck. He got a job with French TV once he retired, J.J. remembers, although this is the first time they've run into each other like this.

“I doubt Yuri's interested.” Although if J.J. ever did seriously want to change disciplines, he was sure he'd have a long list of partners to choose from. It was one of the reasons J.J. hadn't followed his parents into partnered skating. It would be cruel to pick just one other person, and deny everyone else the chance to skate with the King.

“Oh, I don't know.” Chris smirks. “I think the little kitten's just playing hard to get.”

 J.J. smiles back, glad someone at least seems to be in as good a mood as he is. “Yeah, well, I've got a big scratching post he can climb anytime he likes.” Chris laughs approvingly. J.J. reaches over the boards to slap his shoulder, then he heads back to work. He is here to win, after all.

 ***

 

“'I've got a big scratching post he can climb anytime he likes.'” Alain's voice is flat as he repeats the words, pausing the video as he does so.

J.J. swallows. On the laptop screen in front of him is his own frozen image, his face captured mid-smirk. It's not a good look, J.J. can admit that. He's kind of embarrassed the video has already attracted three hundred thousand views in the eight hours it's been up on Youtube. That's the downside of being such a beloved celebrity. “Yeah, but Dad, I didn't mean...”

“It doesn't matter what you meant. Jesus Christ, J.J.” He lifts up his hat and runs a hand through his thinning hair. “You have to apologize. Publicly.”

“I didn't know anyone was recording it.”

“Who cares? Why would you say that shit anyway?” He doesn't sound angry, exactly. More...disappointed? Maybe? Whatever it is, J.J. isn't used to hearing it, and it really doesn't feel great. He shifts on the hard hotel room chair.

“I was just joking.” J.J. grins, to see if that convinces his father that the joke was, in fact, totally hilarious. Alain's face doesn't move, so J.J. explains: “See, what the video doesn't show is that Chris said, 'I think the little kitten's playing hard to get', and so I said the thing about the scratching post because we were talking about cats, right, and...”

Alain puts his hat back on and sighs heavily. “J.J., if you've got a crush on Plisetsky, ask him out like an adult. Acting like an ass is going to lose you sponsorships. And think of a good way to say you're sorry. I've got the CBC coming here in an hour.”

A good way to say he's sorry? J.J. knows the absolutely _best_ way to do that: J.J. Style!

 ***

 

“And that's why,” J.J. says, leaning in so the CBC reporter knows he's serious, “I'm proud to come out as Canada's first openly pansexual figure skater.”

The reporter hesitates, but it's only for a second. “I see. And are you concerned at all that this announcement might affect your future in the sport?”

J.J. shoots her his most dazzling, J.J. smile. “Not at all, Chantale. In fact, I have so much faith in the open-mindedness and acceptance of the great people of this country that I'm offering my home rink in Montreal to any skater who might feel persecuted or in danger, anywhere in the world.” He gazes into the camera beside them. “Come and train with us. You're welcome here.”

“Well, there you have it. A very personal revelation, and a very open invitation, from Canada's own J.J. Leroy. Thank you, J.J.”

“Chantale,” J.J. answers, honestly, “the pleasure was all mine.”

The operator switches off the camera and starts to gather his things, winding up cords and putting stuff into bags. On the other side of the room, J.J. can see his father's got his head in his hands, but J.J.'s not sure why. Is it another migraine? He seems to be getting those more and more frequently lately.

Before he can go over and ask, the reporter says, “I'm so sorry to ask this, but could I get an autograph for my daughter? She thinks you're the greatest.”

“She's a smart kid.”

“Her name's Sophie.” The reporter gives him scrap of paper, but J.J. reaches over to his equipment bag and pulls out his gold Sharpie and one of the glossy eight-by-tens he carries with him for exactly this purpose. He scribbles, “Keep skating, Sophie!” across the bottom, along with his signature and the usual smiley face.

When they've packed up, they go, leaving J.J. and his parents alone in the room. “What did you think?” J.J. asks, eagerly. His mother who speaks first. His father's head is still his hands. J.J. feels for the guy..

“You know we love you, J.J.”

“Yeah. I love you, too.”

“We'll always support you, no matter what. But don't you think you should have asked the rink managers before making an invitation like that? Not to mention coaches, trainers, immigration officials?”

“Why? They'll agree with me.” He's sure of it. “Mom, if we can do something to help people in danger, we should.”

“You're right, darling. Yes. Absolutely. Just don't...” She stops, as if searching for the words. That's unusual. Nathalie usually knows exactly what to say. “Don't be disappointed if... _people_ don't want to be helped that way. At least not yet.”

“Okay.” He agrees, because it's his mom, but J.J. can't imagine it. Who wouldn't want a way out of trouble if J.J. offered one?

 

The answer, it seems, is Yuri.

“What the fuck is the matter with you?” Yuri whirls into J.J.'s hotel room like a pretty blond tornado. He slams the door shut before J.J. has the chance to even react. He'd been about to fall asleep when the knocking—or rather banging—on the door got him out of bed.

J.J. runs a hand through his hair and thanks God and genetics that, even in a worn-out T-shirt and shorts, he looks damn good. “To what do I owe the pleasure, babe?” J.J. leans suavely against the wall, casting his eyes up and down Yuri. He's not looking so bad himself, wearing the usual tight jeans and hoodie combination he's favoured since he was a teenager. His hair is up in a ponytail, and his face is flushed pink. _Has he been drinking with Victor?_ J.J. wonders, thrilled at the thought. _Naughty boy._ Victor's calmed down a bit lately, but his husband and kid are halfway around the world right now. _While the cat's away_...

“Are you fucking insane? No, wait.” Yuri holds up a hand. “Do not answer the question. If you are really crazy, then maybe I have to feel a little bit bad about punching you in the fucking face.”

J.J. laughs. He puts his hand on Yuri's shoulder, but Yuri pushes him away. “Look, sweetheart, if this is because you're worried I'll beat you in the short program tomorrow, believe me, I will, but it's not going to help to get all riled up about it...”

“I don't give a shit what you say to people about yourself,” Yuri interrupts. “Tell them you fuck sheep or moose or whatever the fuck Canadians does. But you think I want to live in your fucking shitty country?”

J.J.'s smile evaporates. “You can't stay in Russia, Yuri. Victor said that himself...”

“Victor runs away. You think I run? Ever?”

“You've already been hurt once.” _He's lucky it wasn't worse_ , that's what Victor had said. Just remembering the words sends a chill through J.J.

“And you think telling the whole fucking world about me will make it safe?”

“I didn't name you.”

“No.” It's a concession, but Yuri spits it out like a curse. “You just say all this after everybody sees a video of you talking about your fucking scratching post like an asshole.”

J.J. doesn't know what to say, but he can't keep quiet. He never does. “That wasn't...I didn't mean...”

Yuri steps forward, closing the space between them. One hand darts out, without any warning, and grabs J.J.'s crotch. Yuri squeezes, hard enough to hurt. J.J.'s dick doesn't care. It twitches in response anyway.

“You want me to climb your scratching post, asshole?” His eyes meet J.J.'s. They're beautiful, clear and green, and if J.J. hadn't wanted him before—which, okay, he did—he _really_ wants him now. “It would take me too long to find it.” He shoves J.J. away, so abruptly it knocks J.J. off-balance. He stumbles backward, catching himself just before he hits the floor. “Never talk to me again,” Yuri growls. “Do not text me, do not fucking look at me. And do not think I will be giving a fuck when you choke on the ice this time.” He turns around and, just like that, he's gone, slamming the door hard enough to rattle the picture on the wall.

J.J. blinks. His dick hurts, from Yuri squeezing it and because it's really hard now, but his chest hurts more. J.J. breathes, but it comes out strangely rough and hiccup-y. He puts a hand to his eye and feels an unexpected wetness.

For the briefest of moments, J.J. feels panic rise within him. This isn't who he is. He doesn't cry. Other people don't upset him. He's the King. He's untouchable. Except now, he feels really touched by Yuri, and not in a way that's at all good.

But there's someone who can help. J.J. wipes his eyes and nose, takes a deep breath, and reaches for Skype.

 

Bella's apartment is dimly lit. The only lamp seems to be right beside her, and it casts her face in a yellowish glow as she yawns into her tablet. “You know, J.J.,” Bella says, after J.J. pours out the whole strange story to her, including Yuri's bizarre lack of gratitude and J.J.'s own strange reaction to it. “You're a great guy.”

“I know, right? That's why I really don't get it.”

“But,” Bella goes on, ignoring the interruption, “sometimes you can be...kind of a lot.”

“A lot?” J.J.'s got a big personality, he knows that. It's all part of being the King. And it's kept his career going long after most of the skaters he grew up with—Emil Nekola, Phichit Chulanot, even Otabek Altin, a friend of both J.J.'s and Yuri's—have retired.

“If you want to apologize, think of something you can do for him. Not something that's really about you.” She frowns sternly. “Something that's actually for him.”

J.J. considers this. “Like what?”

Bella shrugs. “I don't know Yuri like you do.”

“I don't really know him that well.” It kind of sucks to admit it, but he doesn't. They've been on the circuit together for five years, longer if you count Yuri's time in the juniors, and all he knows about Yuri is that he likes cats and could really use some fashion advice from J.J.

“Think about it. You'll come up with something.” Bella sounds like she really believes J.J. will.

“I miss you,” J.J. says. He really does.

“I'll be at Worlds in Marseille,” she replies, smiling. “Better make sure your ass is, too.”

“Oh, I'll be there, sweetheart.”

“Good luck, J.J. With everything.” She blows him a kiss. He throws up the J-signs in response, and she ends the call with a laugh.

 

Putting his tablet down, J.J. looks out the window. It's not that late, although late enough for someone who's skating a short program in the morning, and the city is still alive. Streetlights twinkle, cars honk, people mill around on the street far below. _Something that's actually for him_ , J.J. repeats to himself. It's a brilliant thought, of course, but all of Bella's thoughts are brilliant ones. Except maybe when she thought they should get married, but she made up for that by being the first one to think they should break up.

J.J. glances around the room, hoping for inspiration. His eye lands on a tourist brochure on the desk, the sort of thing that's found in every hotel room in every country of the world. Normally, J.J. ignores them. This time, he picks it up, and there it is, in full colour. The perfect idea.

Giddy with excitement, J.J. leaps onto the bed and picks up his phone. His mom answers on the third ring, sounding a little sleepy. “I want to do something really awesome, Mom,” he says. He'll apologize for waking her up later. This is too important to waste any time now. “And I'm going to need your help.”

 ***

 

The theme of J.J.'s short program is “rebirth.” It's kind of a cliché for a skater of his age, but J.J.'s younger brother Thomas has written him such a killer song, it doesn't matter. J.J. knocks it out of the park. It's not a personal best, but it comes close, and the crowd, of course, are thrilled. So is he.

He doesn't finish first, but he doesn't expect to. Not yet. Minami's got jumps coming out of his ass—four quads in his short program, and a rumoured seven in his free skate—and Yuri is Yuri. But sitting in third as they go into the free skate isn't a bad place to be. As everyone is getting packed up to leave, J.J. sidles up to Victor.

He's on his phone, of course. “J.J.! Look at this!” Beaming, Victor holds it up. His baby is waving at the camera, her face covered in green mush.

“That's adorable.” J.J. presses the envelope in his hand on Victor. “Could you give this to Yuri for me? Yuri Plisetsky,” he adds, just in case.

“What is it?”

“A gift. To apologize.” Yuri's going to freak out when he gets it, in the best of ways. J.J. only wishes he could be there, but like Bella said, this has to be for Yuri, not for J.J. “Thanks.” Victor's still cooing at his phone when J.J. leaves, but J.J. trusts him to do as he asked. Now, all he has to do is wait.

It's a long wait. The next day is the ladies' free skate, so J.J. goes to cheer on his sister Amélie. She's in her second year of junior competition, poised to take the seniors world by storm in another season or two. He sneaks glances at his phone while her competitors perform. When she takes to the ice, he puts it away and watches, rapt.

It takes a King to admit it, but Amélie is better than J.J. ever was. He's no slouch, of course, and he has the medals to prove it, but there's something else about Amélie's skating, something special. He can't describe exactly what it is, but she's on another level. She reminds him of Yuri, a little, the way she floats across the ice like she's on wings rather than skates. She gets a standing ovation when she finishes. J.J. throws the bouquet he bought her down onto the ice, narrowly missing an old lady in the front row, and picks up his phone again.

Yuri has three new pictures up. J.J. favourites all of them immediately. Yuri looks amazing. In the first couple of pictures, his face is lit up with delight while he cuddles three roly-poly tiger cubs, holding them on his lap in one picture and lying on the ground beside them in another. In the third post, a video, Yuri feeds a bottle to one of the cubs, cooing softly in Russian while a zookeeper looks on.

J.J.'s heart is a liquidy mess, and that's before he even reads the captions. _Great day with new friends! Thanks to @ClevelandZoo and others._ It doesn't have to get more specific than that. J.J. knows he's the “others.” He—or rather, his mother, but it's practically the same thing—arranged the special behind-the-scenes visit for Yuri, spinning it as good publicity for the zoo.

“Glad you had fun!” J.J. comments. It goes through, so presumably Yuri hasn't blocked him. Yuri doesn't reply, but that doesn't matter. He doesn't have to.

 

Since the next day is the free skate, J.J. gets to bed early.

“And go to sleep!” His mother says firmly, like he's a little kid, as she shuts his hotel room door.

“Yes, Mom!” J.J. calls back, obediently. He grins, but it's the truth. He needs to rest if he wants any hope of maintaining or improving his podium position.

It's not his fault if, three-quarters of an hour after she leaves, there's a knock on his door. As soon as he cracks it open, Yuri pushes in, slamming the door behind him quickly, like he's worried someone might have seen him.

“Yuri!” J.J.'s heart beats a little faster, even as his stomach turns over. “How was the zoo?”

“What do you want from me?”

“What?”

“I am finished with the fucking around, J.J.” Even after his most recent growth spurt, he still has to look up, a little, to meet J.J.'s gaze. “Tell it to me. What do you want?”

“I...” J.J. blinks. “I want to be your friend.” That's an accurate answer, even if, somehow, it doesn't feel complete. Still, J.J. doesn't have a better one.

“Ha. I do not think you are acting much like a friend.”

“Really?” That hurts. “I'm trying to, babe.”

And then, it happens again. Just like in Mississauga, Yuri reaches up and drags J.J. down to him, sealing their mouths together.

 

It's softer than before, more careful. But just as J.J. is getting into it, his hands moving to Yuri's shoulders and his tongue slipping between Yuri's lips, Yuri pulls away. “Get on the podium,” he says. He's a little out of breath, which is only natural. J.J. is a phenomenal kisser. “And I will let you blow me.”

J.J.'s eyes grow wide. “Yeah?” He bumps his nose affectionately against Yuri's. He can't help himself. “You mean it?”

Yuri scowls. “You think I say shit I don't mean? You think I'm like fucking Victor?”

“No, no. I don't think that.” _I think you're amazing_. “What'll you give me if I win?”

Yuri laughs, a loud, surprised bark that J.J.'s never heard before. He can't help but feel proud he got it out of him. “You win the Grand Prix Final,” Yuri says, “and you can fuck me.”

“For real?”

“J.J....”

“No, no. Okay.” J.J. is smiling so widely, his face hurts. “So, are you going to supply the condoms, or should I?”

Yuri shakes his head. “Fuck off,” he says, as he goes, but J.J. doesn't care. This is more than he ever hoped to get—more than he ever knew he _wanted—_ and he's not going to let the chance slip through his fingers.

 

Minami Kenjirou might be years younger than J.J. He might have seven quads planned in his free skate. He might have the legendary Victor Nikiforov as his coach. But he doesn't have J.J.'s motivation, and, later that evening, he doesn't have a silver medal around his neck and his mouth on Yuri Plisetsky's dick.

Yuri refuses to wear his gold medal. J.J. thinks he should flaunt it, especially given its his fifth in a row, but he's not about to argue. Yuri's not naked, either, which is a little more disappointing, but J.J. works with what he's got.

And he works extremely well, if he does say so himself. The way Yuri's gripping J.J.'s hair with one hand and covering his own mouth with the other seems to indicate he agrees. When Yuri stifles a gasp, J.J. swirls his tongue around the head of his cock and pulls off just far enough to say, “You can make noise, sweetheart. I don't mind. I'd prefer it, even.”

“Just do it, J.J.”

“Your wish is my command.” He sucks harder, bobbing his head up and down the shaft, savouring the sensation of Yuri's silky cock in his mouth. It's a good size, a bit bigger than J.J. expected, with a gorgeous bush of neatly trimmed hair at the base. That's a nice surprise. He figured Yuri for an extreme waxer.

J.J. opens his throat, letting Yuri slide down far enough that J.J. can nuzzle the pubic hair. Its a neat trick, one he picked up from Michele Crispino, of all people. The guy is disturbed, no doubt about that, but no one can deny he sucks cock like he has an advanced degree.

“Fuck!” Yuri groans. The hand in J.J.'s hair tightens painfully enough to bring tears to J.J.'s eyes, but it doesn't dampen his own arousal, and it doesn't deter him from his mission. A few more bobs and Yuri is coming hard.

J.J. swallows it all and stays there, keeping Yuri in his mouth until he grows soft and roughly pushes him away. J.J.'s cock is straining for attention, but he ignores it, for now. It's much better to look at Yuri, fully dressed with his pants open, lying on the hotel bed with his hair a mess and his face bright red.

“Let me see it,” Yuri demands, and J.J. is so distracted, it takes him a moment to realize what he means.

When it hits, he pulls out his dick so fast, it gets inelegantly caught on the waistband of his briefs. Yuri's lips twitch, just a little, as he takes it in. J.J. can't blame him. J.J.'s cock is as big, and as handsome, as the rest of him.

“Want it inside you, babe?” J.J.'s voice hitches just thinking about it. Yuri swallows. J.J. can hear it, so he strokes himself a couple of times, slowly pushing back his foreskin from the tip to the root, eager to show off to his best advantage.

Suddenly, Yuri's off the bed, yanking up his pants as he scrambles to his feet. “I guess we will see how you do at Worlds.” In a flash, he's gone, shutting the hotel room door behind him.

J.J. collapses on his back, groaning with frustration at the same time he grins up at the ceiling. _I'm in love_ , he thinks, happily, reaching down to pump his cock to mental images of a debauched Yuri riding him to an orgasm worthy of a king.

 ***

 

Isabella looks exquisite, as always. She's waiting in the lobby when J.J. and his family arrive at the hotel in Marseille, dressed in gauzy white slacks, a jacket and camisole, and heels that can only be described as “fuck me.” She's always had a good sense for clothes, but working as the social media co-ordinator for one of Paris' largest fashion designers clearly comes with some benefits.

“J.J.!” She stands up when she sees them, throwing her arms around J.J. She smells amazing and, for a second, J.J. regrets that they didn't end up together. He always does, when they meet again after a long time apart.

J.J. kisses her on the cheek, and Bella moves on to hug Nathalie and Alain. They were disappointed, as well, that he and Bella couldn't make a go of it. J.J. knows that, even though they've never said anything to him. The photos of J.J. and Bella that were hanging in heir house stayed there for a long time after their breakup before discreetly disappearing.

His parents want to go upstairs to rest after the long flight, but J.J. feels wide awake. Arm-in-arm, he and Bella walk down to the beach. The sand is warm, even in mid-March, and J.J. buys them both an ice cream from a vendor on the sea front, even though he knows he shouldn't be cheating on his diet this close to a major competition.

“So,” Bella says, licking up her chocolate cone. “Tell me all about it.”

“About what?”

“J.J.” She looks at him over the ice cream. “You can't fool me. What's happening with Yuri?”

The short answer is, “I don't know.”

 

Since leaving Cleveland, J.J. has tried not to bombard Yuri with texts, but it's hard. He limits himself to a few flirty messages a day. Yuri ignores them, mostly, but replies to just enough that J.J. 's encouraged to keep sending them. J.J. sends pictures, too, of himself in the mirror at the gym, of neighbourhood scenery, of a cute cat that hangs around his parents' back yard. Yuri never reciprocates. Or he didn't, until he decided to celebrate his twenty-first birthday by getting a tattoo.

The photo arrived in the middle of the night, which meant it was the first thing J.J. saw the next morning. And what a way to wake up. The tattoo—a tiger's head, of course—was relatively small, placed over Yuri's right hip. Yuri was shirtless in the picture, all the better to show it off, and even in the dim light, his flat, pale stomach and lightly muscled chest made J.J.'s mouth water. Even better were Yuri's shorts, pulled a lot further down than was strictly necessary. Far enough that J.J. could see Yuri's light-coloured pubic hair, and even the very top of his cock. J.J. sent back a long line of heart emojis, then immediately jerked off twice looking at it.

“You're into him, though?” Bella asks.

“Bella, he's so...” J.J. can't put it into words. Fortunately, with Bella, he doesn't have to.

“He seems like a ball buster to me. But,” she continues, before J.J. can open his mouth to deny it. “You can't choose who you love. Next time I see him, I'll be sure to tell him exactly what he can expect if he doesn't treat you right.”

He knows she's not bluffing. He finishes his ice cream. Just as he's about to toss the sticky serviette in the nearby bin, Bella crunches her cone and says, “There's someone new in my life, too.”

“Oh, yeah?” She's blushing, J.J. notices. At one time, that would have made him want to kiss her. Now, he just wants to tease her. “Do tell.”

“It's early days, still. Really early. But if you're ever in Paris, I'd love for you to meet her.”

“Sure thing.” J.J. grins. “And I'll be sure to tell her what she can expect, too. You're not the only one who can look out for a friend.”

Bella smiles. “A _best_ friend, right?”

“Always.” He puts an arm around Bella's shoulders and pulls her in for a hug, then a kiss on the top of her soft, sweet-smelling hair.

 ***

 

As usual, the mens' practice is in the morning. Yuri's been silent since that tattoo picture. J.J. misses him, but he doesn't mind. Although he works very hard to pretend otherwise, Yuri is clearly a little uncertain about stuff like this. It's okay. J.J. doesn't mind. It's sweet.

At practice, J.J.'s supposed to be keeping an eye on his competitors, checking out jumps, seeing who looks like nerves might get the better of them. Still, while one eye's on Minami, interestingly flubbing quad after quad while Victor leans over the boards, flirting with Katsuki who's wearing their sleeping baby in a sling, the other's watching out for Yuri.

He's not there. J.J. skates his short program routine as well as he can on the crowded ice and without giving away too many surprises. _Maybe he's late_ , J.J. thinks, but that seems unlike him. More accurately, that seems unlike his coach. If Yuri had been injured, J.J. would know, through the grapevine if nothing else. So when, twenty minutes into the practice, Yuri still isn't there, J.J. pops out of a triple and skates over to the happy couple.

“Hey, Katsuki. Haven't seen you for a while.”

“No,” Katsuki agrees. He looks happily exhausted. J.J. remembers his parents looking the same, when his brother and sister were little. “It's nice to be out of the house for once.”

J.J. doesn't really have an answer for that, so he says, “Do you guys know where Yuri is?”

Katsuki and Victor exchange a look. J.J. knows that look, too. It's a couple look, the kind that speaks volumes without anyone needing to say a word. He and Isabella used to have looks like that.

“He's arriving tonight,” Katsuki says, finally. “Isn't that right, Victor? I think Yakov was worried about him being, um, distracted if he got here too far in advance.”

J.J. frowns. “Distracted? By what?”

Victor turns around, as if motivated by the word, just in time to see Minami hit the ice again. He calls out something in Japanese and heads over to him, leaving J.J. and Katsuki alone. Katsuki gives a small, tight smile, his gaze fixed on some point on the other side of the rink.

“It's not, um, the same for them as it is for the rest of us, J.J. Russians, I mean.”

“What isn't?”

Katsuki sighs. “Any of it.”

From across the rink, J.J.'s father waves, urgency in his eyes. He's right. J.J. doesn't have time to waste, especially on cryptic conversations like this one. “Your baby's adorable,” J.J. says, flashing a winning grin at the pair of them as he gets back to work.

 

In the locker room after practice, J.J. takes out his phone. _Are you being held prisoner by your dragon coach?_ He texts Yuri. _Do you need a king in shinnig armour to save you?_ He doesn't really expect a reply, but one comes almost instantly.

_Yakov expects I will win. He is right._

It's the first sign of life from Yuri in over a week. J.J.'s heart soars. _What about my prizes?_

The pause is longer this time but, as J.J. is tying is shoes, the text alert beeps again. He nearly knocks the phone off the bench in his scramble to pick it up. _Get on the podium and we'll fuck._

J.J. whoops so loudly, the young skater beside him jerks up his head like a frightened rabbit. J.J. shoots him an apologetic smile and types as fast as his fingers are able to. _What if I win, princess?_

_You will not._

_But if I do?_

_Kiss my ass, J.J._

J.J. laughs out loud. _With pleasure, darling_. There's no response that time, but there doesn't have to be. J.J. leaves the locker room with a light step and a happy heart.

 

For years, it was tradition for J.J. and Isabella to go out for dinner the night before the start of a competition. When the breakup came, that was one of the things J.J. insisted they keep. It's fun, it lets him show off, and lately, it keeps him from sitting in his hotel room, going over his routines over and over in his mind and slowly driving himself crazy.

Isabella picks a touristy restaurant on the beach, exactly the kind of thing J.J. likes. A handful of skating fans are there already, including a very excited fan who insists J.J. sign her bra. Isabella rolls her eyes, particularly when the woman very obviously stuffs a slip of paper with her hotel name and room number into the pocket of J.J.'s jeans. The jeans are tight, so she gets a good feel in while she's there. J.J. laughs, as usual, but casually angles his body away when she tries to go back for a second round.

“Should I tell her you're spoken for?” Isabella asks, shaking her head, as J.J. returns to the table. His new friends have sent over a couple of Bellinis. Bella's already well into one of them.

“What can I say? I've still got it.” J.J. never doubted it. But just as he'd never seriously entertained the idea of cheating on Isabella, he's not going to do that to Yuri. Even if he and Yuri aren't exactly, officially together. Even if Yuri might not even be in Marseille yet.

“You've still got something, all right,” Bella replies, but she smiles and pushes the other Bellini at him. He doesn't usually drink before a competition. Still, one can't hurt.

J.J.'s not dumb enough to get shitfaced the night before Worlds, but he does allow one Bellini to turn into two. He's careful, as always, about his food choices. Mussels, clams and anything else that could be problematic are right out—he has no desire to relive the 2018 Canadian Nationals, during which, thanks to a bad case of food poisoning, he performed between bouts of puking and still finished fourth—as is anything that might weigh him down. He's enjoying a kale and watercress salad, catching up with Bella as she tells him all about her new job, when there's a commotion from the bar.

The bartender's a young woman, slight and blonde. A tall, broad man is yelling obscenities at her in a Parisian accent. The juxtaposition of genteel and profane is jarring. She stares back, undaunted. “You have to leave, Philippe,” she tells him, calmly. He responds by spitting onto her shirt.

J.J.'s up in a second, across the restaurant in less than five. “You heard what she said.” He stares at the man, emotion roiling in his chest. “Get out of here.”

Philippe glances over at him. “Who the fuck are you?”

“The guy who's telling you to get lost.” J.J. crosses his arms over his chest, not coincidentally showing off his thick arms. “Unless you want me to call the police.” He can hear them already, a siren in the distance.

Philippe can hear them too, obviously, and just as obviously, he's an idiot. Instead of running away, he lunges toward the bar, grabbing for the woman behind it. J.J. can't allow that. He steps forward, pushing Philippe back. Philippe stumbles into a table, but that doesn't stop him. He comes back, this time for J.J.

Despite what Yuri might think, and despite Canada being the greatest country in the world, growing up as a boy who loves to figure skate did give J.J. more than a little experience when it comes to fighting. He hasn't had to do it since he was about thirteen years old, so he's a little rusty. Still, he manages to get in a few good hits, to the other man's stomach and his face. When the gendarmes sweep in, finally, Philippe's on the floor. J.J. stands up, breathless, ready to hand over the asshole to the authorities.

 

That's when the asshole kicks him in the nuts.

 

“Fuck!” J.J. groans, stumbling backward. He trips over something, a bar stool maybe. He's not sure. He does know that the last thing he sees, just before he cracks his head against the bar, is a dozen people holding up camera phones.

 ***

 

In his career, and his life, J.J.'s been lucky. He's had physio and massage therapy, and MRIs and CTs and every other kind of scan, but he's never been in an emergency room before. He's been missing out. The emergency room in the hospital in Marseille is nothing like what he'd expect from TV. It's quiet, serene even. J.J. floats along happily, flying high on whatever they've given him to make him forget that he's just fractured his ankle on the eve of the World Championships. It's working. J.J.'s thinking of nothing but the patterns of dots on the ceiling tiles until the curtain around his bed is roughly yanked open.

“What the fuck is this shit, you asshole?”

“Yuri!” J.J. looks up. A nurse streaks toward them, her lips poised to shush. “ _Mille excuses, madame._ ” J.J. flashes her a grin and waves Yuri closer. “Close the curtain,” J.J. tells him. He obeys, but he doesn't look happy about it. Instead, he stares at J.J., particularly at J.J.'s ankle.

“What is the matter with you? I see on the Youtube you are getting into a fight...”

“It wasn't a fight. It was nothing.”

“You are fucked up. You can't skate.”

“No.” J.J. might feel worse about that later. He most probably will. Right now, he shrugs. “That's the way it goes sometimes, babe.”

“Maybe that is 'the way it goes' when you can't mind your own fucking business. You know that stupid fucker?”

“No.”

“You know anybody in that fucking restaurant?”

“Just Isabella.” Who took on the task of breaking the news to his parents, in person. J.J. glances at his phone, lying on the table beside him. They should be here soon. He's not sure how that's going to go, but he's ready to comfort them.

“You're a fucking idiot,” Yuri re-iterates. He doesn't sound so angry this time, though. He looks at J.J. with something else—sadness?—in his eyes. “I wanted to skate against you.”

“It's okay, babe. Now you have a chance of actually winning.”

Yuri snorts, but smirks at the same time, and the sadness disappears. J.J. counts that as a win.

“I'm disappointed, too,” J.J. adds. “I was counting on kissing your ass after the free skate. Been warming my mouth up and everything...”

“Shut up.”

J.J. does, mostly because a wave of bone-deep exhaustion swamps him like a tsunami. He closes his eyes, just for a moment. When he opens them again, Yuri is right there, in his space, practically nose-to-nose. “Listen to me, you fucking asshole,” he says. “You watch me, all right? Not just my skate. After, too. You understand? You watch. I have something to show you.”

J.J. nods. Before he can elaborate, Yuri closes the gap and kisses him, hard and fast. “The whole time,” he repeats. “You will not want to miss it.”

“Gotcha, babe.” J.J. replies. He grins, then allows his eyes to slide shut again. When he opens them, Yuri is gone, and his parents are fretting by by J.J.'s bedside.

 ***

 

J.J. can't remember the last time he watched a senior men's figure skating event purely for enjoyment.

Actually, that's not true. He does remember. It was the 2011 Worlds in Moscow. J.J. had won junior gold—his first and last junior title—and he and his parents watched Victor Nikiforov sail effortlessly to a home country gold of his own. A few weeks later, after J.J. announced he would be moving to the Senior division for the following season, a kid at his home rink asked how he thought he'd ever be able to compete against “the king of the podium”, meaning Nikiforov.

“I'll just have to become the new king,” J.J. had replied, and just like that, a legend was born.

 

This time, J.J. sits halfway up the stands, between Bella and Katsuki and his baby. His parents are in the row behind them. He can feel their eyes, particularly his mother's, on him, but apart from the ankle, J.J. feels fine.

“Fine” turns to “great” when Minami—who puts out a surprisingly strong performance, given his travesty of a practice—waves good-bye to the crowd from the Kiss and Cry. J.J.'s breath catches in his throat as Yuri Plisetsky skates away from the boards toward the centre of the rink.

“Watch me”, he said, as if every eye in the building wouldn't be on him from his first moment on the ice. Yuri is captivating. He always has been. Lilia Baranovskaya's influence is still obvious in the soft lines and muted colours of his costumes, but Yuri himself is there, too. J.J. sees it in the rows of metal studs that run up each side of Yuri's tight black pants, and in the slash of orange and black material, reminiscent of tiger-coloured claw marks, that artfully slices through the back of his shirt, allowing peeks of a black leotard beneath when Yuri picks up speed.

 

He's flawless. J.J. is glad, in a way, that he's not competing, because he wouldn't have stood a chance against Yuri. Every landing is perfect, every step sequence is executed without a single stumble. Yuri's as good today as he was seven years ago, when he won his first senior title. He's a marvel.

The crowd know it as well as J.J. does. When Yuri's routine ends, the arena erupts into cheers. Yuri bows to each side, a smug smile on his face.

“Here,” Isabella says, reaching into her bag. She pulls out a plastic-covered rose, the ones that many vendors are selling out on on the concourse.

“You're the best, Bella,” J.J. says.

 

He's never had much call to develop his throwing skills, so J.J. hobbles as close to the ice as he can before hurling the flower. It bounces off the head of one of the little girls who are scooping them up. She looks up, startled. J.J. gives her an apologetic wave, but he doesn't know if she sees him. By that time, J.J.'s attention is drawn away, in any case.. “Watch me the whole time,” Yuri had said. He'd been very specific, so J.J. watches as he sits in the Kiss and Cry beside Yakov, his legs spread wide. He takes a hit from a water bottle, then wipes his sweaty forehead on a cloth offered by his coach. Just as J.J. is imagining what it might be like to lick up that sweat instead, Yuri reaches into the neck of his costume and pulls something out.

It can't be. There's no way. J.J.'s gaze flies to the large screen on the side of the arena, desperate to see a close up image of the silver object Yuri has in his hand.

It's a necklace, and not just any necklace. It's the one J.J. gave to Isabella, years ago. It seems like she's passed it on. Here at the World Championships, the most important competition on the figure skating calendar, Yuri is wearing J.J.'s initials around his neck.

As quickly as he brought it out, Yuri tucks the necklace away again. It doesn't matter. It was enough for J.J. He turns back to the stands and blows Bella a kiss—he'll be sure to offer a more thorough, detailled thank you later—and heads for the Kiss and Cry.

Even though he's not competing, J.J. still has his competitor's accreditation pass around his neck. They let him into the reserved area without pause. He doesn't hear Yuri's score. Judging from the audience's reaction, it's a good one. By the time he arrives at the Kiss and Cry, Yuri and Yakov are just moving away, back toward the locker room.

“Yuri!”

Every instinct in J.J.'s body tells him to run forward, to gather Yuri in his arms, to hug and kiss him and claim him, right there in front of everyone. He grits his teeth and holds himself back.

“I tell you to watch me, J.J.” Yuri is smirking. Yakov is staring at them from beneath his heavy eyebrows, but since Yuri is ignoring him completely, J.J. tries to do the same.

“Sweetheart, I've never taken my eyes off you.” Not for years. Not since Yuri was fifteen, and definitely not since that day Yuri kissed him in Mississauga.

Yuri holds out a hand. For a moment, J.J. has no idea what to do with it. Then Yuri sighs, rolls his eyes, and takes J.J.'s hand in his. It's brief, businesslike, and well-photographed, but it's still the sexiest handshake J.J.'s ever had. It leaves his mouth watering and his cock half-hard.

“Anything to report on the personal front, J.J.?” Christophe Giacometti calls from the media bench, after Yuri and Yakov have walked away. “You and Yuri seem awfully close all of a sudden.”

J.J. opens his mouth, checks himself, and shuts it again. “Just a bit of sportsmanship between competitors.”

“Really? That new jewellery of Yuri's seems like a little more than sportsmanship...”

Of course Christophe saw it. There's nothing he misses. “We're friends, Chris.” And J.J.'s never been prouder to say that about anyone.

 ***

 

While pre-competition breakdowns have plagued him for years, J.J. has never suffered performance anxiety in the bedroom. Why would he? He's the king.

Yuri has interviews to do, so J.J. gets back to his hotel room first. His parents want to take him out for a late meal, but J.J. begs off, complaining about a need to rest his ankle. He doesn't want to get into more detail than that. He's close to his parents, but there's a limit, even for him.

Showering is forbidden while his ankle heals, so J.J. stands at the marble bathroom sink and splashes water on his face and groin. Then he lies on the turned-down bed and waits. And waits. And waits. Just as he's wondering whether Yuri might possibly have changed his mind, and whether J.J. should text him to beg to change it back, there's a knock on the hotel room door.

“You are naked,” Yuri says, matter-of-factly, when J.J. opens it.

“Yeah.” J.J. grins. “I figured, why waste time, you know?”

“You think we are going to fuck?”

J.J. blinks. “Yeah. I...”

“You did not make the podium. That was our deal, was it not?”

J.J. studies Yuri's face for any evidence he's joking. His expression is stony. “I mean, yeah, it was, babe, but I...I mean, I thought we...”

Yuri reaches out, trailing a long, elegant finger down J.J.'s chest, across his stomach, and along the length of his cock, which jumps in appreciation. “You are a fucking idiot, J.J.,” Yuri says, his tone as fond as J.J.'s ever heard it. He slams the door and takes J.J.'s cock fully in hand.

Yuri's good. J.J. never doubted it, but knowing something theoretically, and being faced with absolute evidence, are two different things. And this evidence is overwhelming.

 It's better than any sex dream J.J.'s ever had about Yuri, and he's not ashamed to admit there have been a lot. He's more tender than J.J. would have expected, but that's not a bad thing at all, especially when J.J.'s handicapped by his fractured ankle.

“Lie on your back,” Yuri orders him, unrolling a condom onto J.J.'s straining dick. He leans down to kiss J.J., and in one fluid movement that has to have hurt, although Yuri makes no indication of it, J.J. is enveloped in a tight heat that makes him sob with desire. When he comes, he's followed almost immediately by Yuri, spurting hotly over J.J.'s chest with an expression of pained-looking ecstasy on his beautiful face. J.J. wants to see that look again, and again, and again.

Post-sex endorphins only act as painkillers for so long. J.J. reaches out, fumbling on the bedside table for his Tylenol 3s, when Yuri shifts, then sits up beside him. The necklace is still there, resting on Yuri's pale skin. It makes J.J.'s heart jump to look at it.

“Sorry, babe. I didn't mean to disturb you.” Yuri says nothing, but watches as J.J. finds the bottle, finally, and shakes two into his hand. He swallows them dry and settles back down, but Yuri doesn't follow. Instead, he leans over, looking thoughtfully at J.J.

“You will come back next season, yes?”

J.J. sighs. “I don't know, babe. I'm twenty-six.”

Yuri scowls. “That is nothing! Even Katsudon skated until he was twenty-eight.”

“Yeah. Well. We'll see, I guess.” It all depends on how the ankle heals. J.J.'s not fucking with that. The King's not entirely sure what he's going to do once he takes his final bow, but whatever it is, he's going to need his legs.

“Promise me.” Yuri stares at him, his eyes brilliant even in the dim light. “You come back next season, and I'll date you. And don't,” he adds, cutting off J.J.'s automatic response, “ask if I fucking mean it.”

“I wasn't going to,” J.J. lies. “What do you mean by 'date', though? Like, you'll move to Canada? Train at my rink?” That would be a dream come true, for so many reasons.

Yuri snorts. “No fucking way. But we can be together. You know? In the public.”

“Public?”

“Even better, we can be on Instagram.”

“Is that going to be safe for you?” J.J. can't bear the thought of Yuri being attacked again, for any reason. He can't bear the thought of not being there to protect Yuri if he needs him.

“Don't worry about me,” Yuri says, as if J.J. has any choice. “I take care of myself. Of course, if you think maybe I am too much for you...” He feigns climbing out bed, but goes nowhere.

J.J. laughs. “Okay, okay. Just...be careful.”

Yuri grunts and lies back down. J.J. follows him, holding out an arm so Yuri can cuddle into his side. It's amazing how natural it feels to have him so close. Like this was always meant to be.

J.J. bends his head and plants a kiss in Yuri's hair. “So.” He can't help himself. “If I come back, you'll date me. If I win a title, you'll...what?”

“You are an asshole.”

For a long moment, J.J. thinks that's going to be his only reply. It's fine. J.J. lets his eyes slide closed, the pain gradually ebbing away, replaced by dull warmth. Then, Yuri says, “Win a title and I will marry you, you son-of-a-bitch.” It's not tenderly whispered. Rather, it's spat, like Yuri's cursing him. J.J. can live with that.

“Don't think I won't hold you to that, babe,” J.J. says, and lets himself slide slowly into a deep, dreamless sleep, his arms wrapped tightly and protectively around the sexiest man in the world.

Well, second sexiest, anyway.


End file.
